NC labor commissioner: I’m ending the unfair ‘death discount’ for companies
The author is North Carolina Commissioner of Labor.
For decades, North Carolina’s approach to workplace safety enforcement has included a policy that, in certain tragic cases, reduced penalties after a worker is killed. These reductions were applied based on the size of a business. In some instances, they lowered penalties by as much as 70 percent in cases involving a fatality. This came to be known by workplace safety advocates as the “death discount.”
I’m now ending that policy.
For decades, North Carolina adjusted penalties using the approach taken by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at the federal level. These reductions weren’t unique to our state; they reflected a broader enforcement framework that took into account employer size in assessing penalties. But after taking office as North Carolina Commissioner of Labor and reviewing a full year of case data and trends, it became clear to me that this practice wasn’t achieving its intended purpose. In the most serious cases — where a life was lost — these reductions didn’t promote justice or accountability.
Instead, this policy diminished the weight of a workplace death based on factors that should never influence how we value human life. That is why I have ended this practice in North Carolina.
As Commissioner of Labor, I’ve directed the North Carolina Department of Labor to end the practice of discounting penalties when a worker has died. This change reflects a simple, common-sense principle: the loss of a human life cannot be discounted. Not by formulas, not by percentages, and certainly not by the size of an employer’s payroll.
The North Carolina Department of Labor exists for one reason — to protect workers. Enforcement is a critical part of our mission. Penalties are not just numbers on paper; they reinforce accountability, deter negligence, and underscore the seriousness of failing to provide a safe workplace. When a fatality occurs, it is the most severe breakdown of an employer’s responsibility to keep their workers safe.
For years, the system allowed the severity of a penalty to be softened by a company’s size. A smaller employer could get a significantly reduced penalty just based on their size. A larger business would pay a much higher penalty for the exact same violation. While the intention may have been to account for the ability to pay, the effect was something far more troubling: it created an uneven standard for the value of a worker’s life.
A life isn’t worth less because it was lost at a small business instead of a large corporation. Grief does not scale. Responsibility does not shrink. And accountability should not be relative.
This reform is about restoring balance and reaffirming what should have always been clear. When a fatality occurs due to workplace safety failures, our response must reflect the gravity of that loss — fully and without dilution.
Some might worry that eliminating the “death discount” will place new burdens on small businesses. I’m an advocate for small businesses, and I understand those concerns, but the right way to support them is with education, outreach, and other compliance assistance — not by discounting the value of a life. That does everyone a disservice.
Preventing tragedies in the first place is always the goal. But when prevention fails, accountability must be consistent.
Whether you survive the workday shouldn’t depend on the size of your employer. Whether you work for a company with 10 people or 10,000 people, the expectation is the same: every worker should go home at the end of the day.
We can’t undo the losses that have already happened. But going forward, we can ensure that our policies reflect the dignity of those lives and the seriousness of what was lost. Ending the “death discount” is one step toward that goal.
North Carolina workers deserve nothing less.
This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NC labor commissioner: I’m ending the unfair ‘death discount’ for companies."